When consumers and students ask questions about the realities of chicken farming, Perdue Farms invites them to educate themselves on group tours at their new Poultry Learning Center facilities on active family farms in its network.
Although farm tours and transparency are not new concepts, Perdue Farms has taken them to another level by opening and supporting the construction of Poultry Learning Centers by its farmers, allowing everyone from students to consumers the opportunity to see the realities of chicken farming.
This fall, Andy Hanacek, editor-in-chief of The National Provisioner, visited Perdue’s newest Poultry Learning Center at S&N Enterprises, LLC — a Pinetops, N.C, family farm — and interviewed second-generation poultry farmer and S&N owner Steven Brake, as well as Mike Levengood, Vice President, Chief Animal Care Officer and Farmer Relationship Advocate for Perdue Farms. Brake has been raising chickens for Perdue since 1995, and his father had grown chickens for Perdue for nearly three decades. What follows is a portion of their conversation: